We are excited to be editing an interdisciplinary book on disability andmothering. We seek papers that explore the histories, practices, theoriesand lived realities of mothering and disability as they run parallel to,intersect with, complicate, and inform one another. Both disability andmothering are liminal experiences, placing one at a threshold or doorway,a boundary, verge, or margin that marks a potential interval of differenceoffering an opening to new perspectives. Doorways and thresholds representspaces for transition and transformation, the possibility for sharingexperiences and the fluidity of identity, in the crossing back and forthfrom one perspective to another. As a liminal experience, â€œmotheringâ€ canbe thought of as an attitude or orientation, a set of practices arisingout of relationality, rather than a stable identity. New reproductivetechnologies also expand definitions of â€œmothering,â€ but also raisequestions about the future of the fetus marked â€œdisabledâ€ as well as thelives of people living with disability in an age of genetic screening. Akey goal of this volume will be to examine the productive tensions broughtto view by pairing mothering and disability.

Abstracts/Proposals (300-500 words) due: June 1, 2008Acceptances made by June 30, 2008Accepted and completed papers (15 pp. double-spaced, MLA format) due:September 30, 2008Authors with disabilities, or who have family members with disabilities,are especially encouraged to contribute. Please send inquiries andabstracts, along with a brief CV, to: Editors, Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson atlewiecc_at_muohio.edu and/or Jen Cellio at celliojl_at_muohio.edu

About the editors:

Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson, the mother of an adult son, born with adisability, is a professor of English and Affiliate of the Womenâ€™s StudiesProgram at Miami University. Her research and teaching focus oncomposition and rhetoric, disability studies, and feminism. She is theauthor or co-editor of articles, book chapters, and several books, amongthem, Disability and the Teaching of Writing: A Critical Sourcebook(Bedford/St. Martinâ€™s, 2008); and Embodied Rhetorics: Disability inLanguage and Culture (Southern Illinois UP, 2001). She is a founder, withfive other faculty, of the Disability Studies minor at Miami.

Jen Cellio is a Ph.D. candidate at Miami University where she studiesrhetorical theory, rhetorics of science, womenâ€™s rhetorics, andcomposition theory. Her dissertation, entitled â€˜More children from thefit, less from the unfitâ€™: Discourses of Hereditary â€˜Fitnessâ€™ andReproductive Rhetorics, post Darwin to the 21st Century, examinesarguments used during the eugenics movement to curb or encourage thereproductive practices of particular groups of women.